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Comment by gaogao | Hacker News Reader

> In 2007, the scientist, who once worked at the University of Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory, told the Times newspaper that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really".

> While his hope was that everybody was equal, he added, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true".

Yeah, pretty racist

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In 2013, I sat in on one of his talks at the Salk Institute. This guy was one of the most openly racist and sexist people I've ever seen. He spent 5 minutes shitting on the former NIH head for not funding him because she was a "Hot blooded Irish woman"

This is the sort of turn-of-century Mr. Burns type racism that I don't think most Americans even remember.

I always wonder with that kind of racist explanation, how the line of reasoning goes.

Suppose for the sake of argument, there's a place where everyone has 10 IQ points less, on average, than the West.

The Flynn effect is about 14 points over a few decades.

How do you square those things? Did the West not have a society a few decades ago? Is there some reason you can't have civilization with slightly dumber people? There was a time when kids were malnourished in the west, and possibly dumber as a result. Also, not everyone in society makes decisions. It tends to be very few people, and nobody thinks politicians are intelligent either.

I've never heard an explanation of intelligence that had any actual real-world impact on a scale that matters to society.

The explanation would have to have quite a lot of depth to it, as you have to come up with some sort of theory connecting how people do on a test to whatever you think makes a good society.

In a clean game-theoretic terms, without making any moral or ideological claims about “who is smarter”, we’ll treat underlying advantage as any positional asset (intelligence, wealth, charisma, skill, social capital, etc.). The question is: If a subset of players has an advantage in a repeated, large-group game, how do they best play to maximize payoff and stability?

Here's the strategy chatgpt came up with (amongst many other):

What Not to Say (Avoid These)

Don’t describe intelligence or talent as intrinsic, innate, or permanent. This triggers resentment and identity defense.

Don’t use language that signals “I am ahead of you.”

Don’t use your advantage to win every interaction—save leverage for important conflicts.

People tolerate talent. They hate being made aware of being lower in the hierarchy.

_____

Is it possible the backlash to Watson could be viewed from this game theocratic perspective, and not that he was racist and wrong?

Hmmm, let's see.

How many people died in wars in the 20th century? How many of them did NOT originate in Europe and Asia?

How much of climate change that has fouled up the earth we depend is NOT attributable to economic activity in the west?

Is there a western/Asian country where late-stage capitalism and the devaluation of of the common has not taken hold?

I could go on...

Are these evidence of intelligence? This is not a rhetorical question.

arguably I'd say wars can be generally indicative of intelligence. Higher-ability groups are more likely to choose war when their greater power raises the expected payoff of fighting. Climate change is also related to intelligence as it can argued that the more advance societies do end up consuming/producing more and thus create more Climate related waste. The end result of it might not be desirable, but probably something these advance societies can deal with.

I'm not sure I understand your point around late-stage capitalism and the devaluation of the common...

Are you really arguing that the western world has not been more advanced?

The European/Asian wars of the 20th century (ironically started by people who thought of themselves as superior races) wiped out ten of millions of lives and an untold amount of wealth. It led to the collapse of entire empires and nations. Surely you are not claiming that the wars were a net positive, are you? One indicator of a lack of intelligence is engaging in actions that are against your own interests.

Also, with climate change, may I remind you of quote from Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy:

> I'd like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.

Industrialization followed this pattern. Shitting where you live is a textbook case of stupid.

> The end result of it might not be desirable, but probably something these advance societies can deal with.

The people dying in extreme floods and fires tell me otherwise, and it's likely only going to get worse.

> whereas all the testing says not really

This part is (still) true. Is that fact racist?

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